The present invention relates to a technique for a recording system for simultaneously shooting and recording images by using a plurality of video camera devices such as a video camera.
Portable movie devices and the like have recently spread so that video pictures can be shot by a variety of methods. Also, software for easily editing video data thus obtained on a personal computer has also spread.
A technique for a system for shooting pictures by using a plurality of video cameras is disclosed in Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 61-94461. This system includes a main time code transmitter for sending a time code used as a reference to each camera of the system by radio transmission. Thus, the respective cameras are mutually synchronized based on the time code, so as to ease the edit operation of recorded data.
In the conventional system, however, it is necessary to separately provide the main time code transmitter for synchronization in addition to the plural video camera devices, which disadvantageously makes it difficult for a user to conveniently enjoy shooting pictures.
Furthermore, although the video camera devices are mutually synchronized by the time code, parameters of the video camera devices themselves, such as focus, lens opening and a compression ratio of recorded images, cannot be dynamically changed. Therefore, a shooting operation cannot be performed with the respective video camera devices mutually synchronized as the whole system, and hence, this system is not very convenient.
Moreover, each video camera device is equipped with a storage device such as a tape, which increases cost and is disadvantageous in the portability and maneuverability.